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The UK sounds a terrible place to live from what you say why do you stick around when you have Cuba (for the time being) Russia etc ?

Where have I ever said that I support or think Cuba or Russia are any good? I stick in the UK because my family and friends are here, I speak the language and have roots in my community.

That doesn't mean that the UK isn't a terrible place on many levels, given the amount of wealth. Millions of people are suffering, while the rich get richer and more and more laws are passed that benefit the rich and not workers.

Because if the UK open its doors to beef from around the world then it would fatally threaten our own beef farmers. If you thought that UK fishermen were a strong voice for the Leave campaign then just wait to see what happens when beef farmers get hold of their Tory MP, when it comes to WTO talks. They may represent a small % of our overall economy but they carry a lot of political weight.

Lots on WTO and beef in this linkTo view the link you have to Register or Login

New Zealand unilaterally scrapped most of its tariffs in 1985. Although NZ had a highly competitive agricultural sector, the UK doesn't. Interestingly it was a Labour government that implemented most of the market reforms in New Zealand that are considered Thatcherite in UK.

Many things confuse me about Brexit logic but the biggest is what are we meant to do differently once control is taken back? Scrapping tariffs unilaterally at least would mean that there would be an economic policy that could be implemented with a real impact that couldn't previously be done while inside the EU. And one that would be good for consumers too in particular as they are hit by lower real incomes due to a lower pound.

A work colleague highlighted one little thing I hadn't previously been aware of today. Currently the official languages of the EU are English & French. Given that Malta adopted Maltese, and the Irish adopted Gaelic, as their official languages, there will be no EU country with English as its official language, so the official language of the EU will have to default to French.

Mat, we can't cut and paste. We are WTO members as part of the EU. The EU is a special case. It is actually a single WTO membership comprised of 28 members plus the EU as a member, so 29. We become one member and that means all 160+ WTO members have to agree to new terms, by consensus. The tariffs will not be the issue. It's the quotas, which are a key part of the obligations and commitments. There is no reason why some big countries like Brazil will accept that their beef, for example (& a contentious issue for years), should be subject to the same limits for the UK as for the EU, which is many times bigger than us. In fact, we don't even know what some of the quotas are because they were last agreed in 2004 before 11 countries joined the EU and revising them has been a headache ever since.

Good reading over the last few pages. Details and technicalities are what people should've been focussing on before the vote. More please.

A main point of Leavers seems to boil down to the argument that we will be a lot more nimble in negotiating bilateral deals when outside of the EU. This seems intuitive - in the world of business smaller challenger entities normally are. They have less bureaucracy by virtue of their smaller scale. But that completely contradicts the other side of this POV - that because of our large size and importance, every country in the world - the EU included, will be readily willing to make raid compromises on their own positions in order to gain access to our huge market. One cannot be simultaneously small & nimble, and benefit from massive economies of scale because they are at either end of the same linear spectrum.

And when the above paradigm collapses under weight of paradox, unequivocal free trade is espoused. A noble goal, for sure. But one of undoubted naivety. Rather like disabling a firewall on your home computer when watching free porn.

A work colleague highlighted one little thing I hadn't previously been aware of today. Currently the official languages of the EU are English & French. Given that Malta adopted Maltese, and the Irish adopted Gaelic, as their official languages, there will be no EU country with English as its official language, so the official language of the EU will have to default to French.

That isn't true. English is still an official language in Ireland and Malta. Countries can have more than one. No one serious has proposed dropping English as an official language and I can't see it happening as so much EU business is carried out in English.

Where have I ever said that I support or think Cuba or Russia are any good? I stick in the UK because my family and friends are here, I speak the language and have roots in my community.

That doesn't mean that the UK isn't a terrible place on many levels, given the amount of wealth. Millions of people are suffering, while the rich get richer and more and more laws are passed that benefit the rich and not workers.

Surely you and your extended family could claim political asylum in Cuba/Russia.

After all as far as I can make out everybody in Cuba is poor and in Russia the rich are very rich and the poor can foxtrot oscar. If you think millions are suffering in this country trot over to Cuba/Russia you'll love it.